Politics and the Olympic film documentary: the legacies of Berlin Olympia and Tokyo Olympiad

Abstract

Hosting the olympics has become a way for a modern nation state to represent itself to the international community. If we accept this truism, it then follows that the Olympic film functions as a representation of that representation. What does this mean? Any discussion of the legacy of Olympic films brings to mind only two films that we might consider: the very first of the genre, Leni Riefenstahl's Olympia (1938), and Kon Ichikawa's Tokyo Olympiad (1965). The frequent question asked in relation to the first of these films is: ‘Can the politics of the nation-state be separated from the filmed representation of it in Riefensthal's documentary film?’ My response to this question is not whether we as social scientists can ever separate the nation-state's politics from the filming of its Olympics, but that in the two documentary films I am about to consider here, this has been the question that has plagued viewers and critics alike only in relation to Riefenstahl's film, yet it also should concern us in relation to Ichikawa's documentary. The question then is about representations that seem able to transcend national politics, when, how and why. This chapter seeks to explore the reasons for the more benigin reading of the Ichikawa film and to consider the issue of ‘evasive myths’ in relation to both the Olympic Games and their documentary films.